


This is Not Happening

by scullywolf



Series: TXF: Scenes in Between [181]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Gen, Missing Scene, Vomiting, mentions of child death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-22
Updated: 2017-11-29
Packaged: 2019-02-05 12:42:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12794802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scullywolf/pseuds/scullywolf
Summary: Three in-between scenes from TINH.





	1. Chapter 1

Doggett wakes in a cold sweat with the bed sheets in a tangle around his legs and the ghost of his son’s name on his lips. He struggles to sit upright and rubs his face, trying to breathe through the sob rising in his chest. God damn it, he hasn’t had a dream like that about Luke in years. Not to say he hasn’t dreamed about Luke at all, but it’s been long enough since the last horrible nightmare that he’d started to think he was past all that.

Apparently not.

In the wake of the dream, his grief feels raw and fresh, and at first all he can do is focus on his breathing, trying not to gulp the air. In, hold, out. In, hold, out. Slowly, bit by bit, he claws his way back from the edge and regains his bearings.

He glances at the clock, sighing when he sees that it’s not yet 3:30 in the morning. Getting back to sleep has always been out of the question after these nightmares. He knows from experience that the only way he can stay ahead of the sadness is to get moving and keep moving. With a groan, he disentangles himself from the sheets and stands, testing the steadiness in his legs. Convinced they won’t buckle, he tugs the t-shirt off over his head and tosses it into the basket in the corner. The cold air in the room hits his damp skin and he shivers, moving to the closet and dressing quickly. 

He’s out the door and behind the wheel of his truck less than five minutes later. Going to work is a gamble -- there might be too much stillness there at this hour -- but he doesn’t know where else to go. He can always take a walk if it comes to that.

As it happens, his worries about insufficient distraction are completely unfounded. Not 30 seconds after he opens the office door, the phone on Agent Scully’s desk rings. Raising his eyebrows, he picks up the receiver.

“John Doggett.”

“Oh! Uh, hi. Sorry, I was expecting to get an answering machine. This is the, uh, X-Files division of the FBI?”

“Last I checked, yeah.”

“Wow, they got you guys working some weird hours, huh? Weird hours, weird cases.”

Doggett suppresses an exasperated sigh; this guy’s hardly the first person to ever crack wise about their typical case load. “Well, unless you’re calling me from overseas, I’d say you’re working some weird hours, too. What exactly can I do for you, mister…?”

“Jackson. Officer Shawn Jackson, Helena Police Department. I’m on the graveyard shift, see, but I always figured you feds were regular nine-to-fivers, you know?”

 _It is way too early in the morning for this crap._ Yeah, he was hoping to keep busy, but he hasn’t had anything like enough sleep or enough caffeine for rambling 4am phone calls from local cops.

“Look, Officer Jackson, I don’t mean to be blunt, but is there a reason you’re calling me, or did you just want to chit chat about FBI work hours?” 

“Uh, yeah. Well, we got a case tonight, and my sergeant gave me this number and said I ought to pass it along to you all. That you specialize in this sort of thing.”

“And what sort of thing would that be?”

“Woman turns up in a field, beaten to within an inch of her life, but the kid who found her swears up and down it was a flying saucer that dropped her there.” 

_Yeah, and the Easter Bunny delivers my mail._ It’s sick what some people will do and say to try and cop an insanity plea after they’ve been caught.

“I don’t suppose you folks considered that the kid’s lying?”

“Of course we did. Not a very good lie, either, and we haven’t ruled him out as a suspect. But something came up when we started checking into his background. That’s the other reason I’m calling. He doesn’t have a criminal record, but there is a note in the system that he was involved in a federal case last year. My sergeant thinks you guys might have more information on him, anything that could help us figure out if he’s actually dangerous or just nuts.”

 _You might’ve lead with that._ Doggett rubs his eyes. “All right, this kid got a name?”

“Yeah. Richard Szalay, S-Z-A-L-A-Y. Goes by Richie. Oh, and the, uh, the woman he supposedly found? Her name’s Teresa Hoe… Hoes? H-O-E-S-E.”

In an instant, Officer Shawn Jackson from the Helena Police Department has Doggett’s complete and undivided attention.

He has been through the case file on Mulder’s disappearance so many times, he could recite it forward and backward. Those two names may as well be a lightning bolt to the brain. 

“Hoese? You’re telling me Teresa Hoese’s been found? Alive?”

“Y-yeah. I mean, technically. Like I said, she’s in really bad shape. They’re not sure she’s going to make it. Wait, you know who she is?”

“You could say that. Listen, Officer Jackson, I need you to give me a good number where I can reach you, and I’m gonna have to call you back.”

“Uh, sure. But do you think this Richie Szalay’s responsible for what happened to her?”

“At this point I have no reason to believe that, no. But tell him not to leave town.”

He grabs a pen and a Post-It from Scully’s desk and jots down the number Jackson gives him, then hangs up the phone and takes a shaky breath. After weeks of nothing, this could actually be a break. Holy hell, an honest-to-goodness _break_ in the Mulder case.

Crossing quickly to his own desk, he sits and picks up his phone, punching the extension for the switch board. “Hey, it’s John Doggett. I need to reach A.D. Skinner at home... Yeah, it’s an emergency.”

As he waits for the call to ring through, Doggett considers the incredibly unlikely fact that he was here at all, at this hour, that he walked into the office at precisely the right moment to catch that ringing phone. He’s not the sort to believe in signs or messages from beyond the grave or anything like that, but he has to admit it’s a hell of a coincidence. If he hadn’t been woken up by that nightmare… 

“Skinner.” His boss’s groggy voice snaps him out of his musing.

“Sir, it’s John Doggett. I’m sorry to disturb you at this hour. But I’ve just received some news I think you’re gonna want to hear.”


	2. Chapter 2

_ “If you’re trying to prepare yourself, I want you to stop. Nothing says that we’re going to stumble over him in some field. Nothing says he won’t be fine.” _

_ _

_ You don't understand _ , she would tell him, if grief and fear hadn't rendered her temporarily incapable. Sobs hiccup out of her in fits and starts, escaping past the control she is fighting so hard to maintain.

To his credit, Skinner doesn’t pull away or try to get her talking again; he merely holds her quietly while she fights to regain her composure. It’s not as awkward as it could be, but it’s not  _ not _ awkward, either. Theirs is an odd relationship. They’ve been through too much together for the strict formality of supervisor and subordinate, but it also wouldn’t be accurate to call them friends. They’re two people with shared trauma, bound by common experiences, but that in itself does not necessarily confer intimacy. And yet here they are.

At length, she wrestles back her control, ultimately pushing herself away and taking a step backward. She wipes at her eyes and sucks in a deep breath through her nose, holding it for a few seconds before blowing shakily out.

“I, um--” she starts, shaking her head and resolutely swallowing back another sob that threatens to rise. She clears her throat and tries again. “Right after he was first taken, I started having these dreams. Terrible dreams about Mulder on a ship being… being tortured.” 

The last part comes out as a half-whisper, half-whimper. She’s never so much as tried to admit any of this aloud before -- not to her mother, not to her therapist, certainly not to Agent Doggett -- and it’s hard to force the words out.

“That’s a completely understandable response to trauma,” Skinner says, and she shakes her head again. 

“I thought that was all it was, too. And after a while, they stopped. I hadn’t had one for months until about two weeks ago, after everything with…” She stops again, looking down at the hand that has instinctively come up to rest on her abdomen. A pang of guilt hits her at the memory of that whole incident, and she shoves it aside. She has to get this out. “I’ve had the dream almost every night since then. And again, I thought it was just a subconscious response to… to what had happened. But then today, when Richie Szalay said there have been sightings and UFO activity for the past two weeks, I started to wonder if maybe there was a correlation.”

“You think these might not be dreams but… what, images? Premonitions? Some sort of psychic link?”

“I don’t know, I-- All I know is that the dream has always been the same until tonight. Mulder’s… he’s strapped to some sort of chair and he’s being experimented on and… and he’s screaming.” She’s crying again now, her words watery, but she pushes ahead anyway. “He’s in agony, but he’s alive. And I thought it couldn’t get worse than that, but then tonight he was… he was…”

She can’t. She can’t say the word again. Skinner’s hand comes back up to her shoulder and squeezes lightly while both of hers cover her face.

“Teresa Hoese is still alive,” he says quietly, his voice cracking. “It’s not too late for her, and it might not be too late for Mulder. We  _ have _ to believe that.”

It takes several hitching breaths before she can collect herself enough to reply.

“I used to tell Mulder that believing was the easy part. It’s taken me a long time to fully appreciate how wrong I had it.”

“So it’s hard. But what else can we do when the alternative is despair?”

“I don’t know,” she whispers.

“Well I’ll tell you what I believe,” he says, the words clipped as though he too is fighting to keep it together. “I believe that we are going to find him. Soon. I believe he’s as close as he has ever been and that we are not leaving Montana without him. I believe he’s going to be okay.”

She shivers and wraps her arms around her ribcage, hugging tight. “I hope you’re right.”

He squeezes her shoulder once more and then drops his hand. “Come on. It’s freezing out here, and we’ve got another big day ahead of us tomorrow. You should try and get some more rest if you can.”

The last thing she wants to do right now is go back to sleep, but she nods anyway, feeling guilty for waking him and dragging him out here in the middle of the night. Casting one last glance up at the stars, she turns and heads back toward her room. The only sounds breaking the night’s stillness are those of her footsteps and Skinner’s as they cross the parking lot, and she pauses in front of the block of rooms, hands shoved deep in her coat pockets. She turns her body toward him, but her gaze stays trained at the sidewalk.

“I’m sorry for waking you. But thank you for listening.”

“We  _ will _ find him, Dana. I know it. Just a little longer.”

_ Maybe, but will he still be alive when we do? _

But she’s already kept him out here long enough with her worries. Instead, she just nods again before pulling out her room key. “Good night, sir.”

Alone in her room, the silence is deafening. Despite Skinner’s reassurance, she can’t help feeling that he’s wrong, that she absolutely  _ does _ need to prepare herself for the worst. That no amount of belief or positive thinking will alter the inevitable course of events. Oh, she will continue to pray; of course she will. But she will also prepare.

Prepare for the horrible discovery of his body.

Prepare for the excruciating difficulty of life without him.

Prepare to raise their child alone.

Prepare to look for him in the starlight every single night until she finally joins him there, herself.

When the tears come again this time, it is like a dam breaking, sudden and violent. She would have thought she had exhausted them all by now, but no. Doubled over, she stumbles her way to the bed and collapses there, the pillows only somewhat muffling the sounds of her anguish. She is helplessly swept up in the current of it, borne along like a leaf down a raging river. The only way out is through, and when at last exhaustion drags her into blessed unconsciousness, she sleeps without dreaming.


	3. Chapter 3

_“It’s too late.”_  
_“He needs help!”_  
_“Agent Scully!”_

Skinner’s chest constricts at the wild desperation in her eyes as Scully turns and sprints away, back toward the compound. Agent Doggett whirls on him almost immediately. 

“You didn’t prepare her?! How could you do that to her? How could you let her come out here with even the slightest hope that he’d still be alive? What the hell is wrong with you?!”

Before Skinner can answer, Agent Reyes steps in front of him, holding out her hand. “He tried, John. We both did. She didn’t want to hear it. I think you know how she--”

“Damn it, Monica, you should have tried harder! You should have sat her down and---”

“And would _you_ have listened? If someone had tried to sit you down when we found Luke? Would _anything_ have kept you from thinking that maybe they were wrong and maybe he was okay?”

“This isn’t about me!” Doggett roars, and Skinner finally steps forward.

“All right, Agent, that’s enough,” he says, quietly but firmly. 

There is a sudden, bright flash in the sky ahead, and his stomach plummets. _Oh, no. Nononono, not her, too._ Without even bothering to consider alternative explanations for the light, he shouts Scully’s name and launches into a sprint.

He makes it to the clearing just as the light goes out and the craft speeds away. A sick sense of deja vu almost sends him to his knees, and he stumbles to a stop, his chest and stomach both heaving, bile rising in his throat. Doggett barrels out of the woods behind him, skidding to a halt at his side.

“What’s wrong, why’d you stop?”

“They took her,” he says around gasping breaths.

“What do you mean? Someone took Agent Scully? Who?!”

A chilling but distinctly human howl echoes in the distance, and Doggett takes off again. Skinner’s feet are moving before he even realizes it, combat instincts overtaking the hopelessness that threatens to immobilize him instead. He’s on Doggett’s heels as they get to the door of the cabin, which is already wide open. Inside, people are huddled against the walls, looking shellshocked, many of them crying. 

There is a shout from the room where Skinner and Agent Reyes had retrieved Scully not five minutes earlier. He and Doggett are there in a few short strides, just as one of the compound’s armed guards comes flying backward through the doorway.

“You were supposed to protect him!” Scully bellows, and for a moment Skinner just stares in disbelief.

_She’s still here. They didn’t take her. Oh my God, she’s still here._

In the next moment, however, she launches herself at the guard, only to be intercepted by Doggett, and Skinner snaps out of his reverie. Dana Scully is a hell of a lot stronger than she looks, and with the addition of adrenaline and her current emotional state, Doggett isn’t going to be able to keep ahold of her any better than the other times he’s already tried to, tonight. Skinner quickly places himself between them and the guard and puts his hands up.

“Easy, Scully. Take it easy.”

“Jeremiah’s gone! They took him! And it’s _his_ fault!” She continues to strain in Doggett’s grip, apparently still intent on getting to the man behind Skinner. To do what, he doesn’t know. 

“Dana, listen--”

“No! Do not _fucking_ ‘Dana’ me. Jeremiah was the _only_ one who could save him and now he’s gone. He’s gone!”

She elbows her way free of Doggett and crashes into Skinner’s chest. Immediately, she tries to twist away from him, but he wraps his arms around her and holds fast.

“And what is attacking this man going to accomplish?” he says. “It’s not going to bring Jeremiah back. It’s not going to bring _Mulder_ back.”

The air goes out of her as if she’s been sucker punched. But only for a moment. And then she explodes.

She shoves her hands hard against his chest, suddenly enough to catch him off guard and break his hold on her. Spinning with arms outstretched, she shoves a lamp off an end table, sending it crashing to the ground. The sound of it breaking is buried beneath the guttural cry that comes out of her. Skinner has never seen her like this, not ever. Not when her sister was killed, not when they thought Mulder was dead in a boxcar, never.

“You bastard!” she screams, her body doubled over from the force of it. “He’s dead because of you!”

It’s nothing that hasn’t already been ringing in his own head from the instant he saw Mulder’s body in that field, but it still knocks the wind out of him to hear her say it.

“You told me we would bring him home alive! You lied to me!”

“Agent Scully, you know that’s not true,” Doggett says quietly from behind her, looking stricken. “A.D. Skinner may have been wrong, but he didn’t lie. He hoped we’d find Mulder alive just as much as you did.”

“Shut up,” she barks over her shoulder, but the fight is starting to leave her. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I may not have all the history, but I do know you’re hurting. And whether or not you believe it, I know he’s hurting, too.”

Her defiant gaze locks with his, and Skinner forces himself not to look away. To let her see the devastation he’s feeling, no matter how uncomfortably vulnerable that makes him. 

“I’m so sorry,” he croaks, and her face crumples.

She staggers forward, one arm up to ward him off, and hurries past him to the door of the cabin. Outside, she throws up over the porch railing, into the dirt below. Skinner follows, eventually reaching her side and bringing a hand up to rest on her back, rubbing gently as she gasps for breath. Whether or not she meant what she said in the heat of the moment, right now she needs support, and he will be here for her as much as she allows.

Straightening and wiping her mouth on her sleeve, she turns and falls against him, wrapping her arms around his waist. Her whole frame quakes with soundless sobs, much like it did the other night when she confessed her fears under the starlight. He hates that she was right, wishes bitterly that his own hope and belief could have been enough to save Mulder. The guilt he has been carrying since Mulder’s disappearance is compounded by the knowledge that there is nothing in the world he could possibly do now to make things right. To fix his terrible mistake.

“What am I supposed to do, now?” Her words are muffled by his shirt and almost inaudible, but the pain in them is clear as glass.

“You go on,” he says honestly, even though he knows how hard that will be for her to believe right now.

“I don’t know if I can.”

“I won’t pretend it’s easy. But I promise you won’t have to do it alone.”

She doesn’t say anything more for a long, long time.


End file.
